Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are a great way to reach a lot of people at once. Many people using social media for business see it as a way to push content outward at an audience. But social media is also a great tool to get information from your audience. The most effective way to do this is through authentic conversations directly with your audience inviting their feedback, but there are also a number of tools that can tell you a lot about your audience–even if they aren’t always typing replies to your content. Read on for ways to learn more about your customers and audience using some readily available and free social media tools.

Bitly

Bitly is a free link shortener that also tracks and tallies clicks to links. Use it to shorten long links and then to see how popular your content is. After you create a Bitly link, it is saved to your link library. You can then go back to your library to see how many clicks your link has gotten. If you use the same link of your Facebook and Twitter pages, Bitly will tell you which site clicks came from and even if people are accessing that link from a shortened link someone else has created. By learning more about the clicks your content gets, you can see what is of interest to your customer and audience. You can also see if some of your content drives more traffic on Facebook or Twitter giving you insight into where you customers are and how they behave.

Facebook Likes

When a fan gives your content a like, it means they support what you have to say or offer. It’s not a big commitment like a comment on your post, but it’s something to pay attention to. Try out different types of content on your Facebook page, such as offering a deal or sharing a tutorial and see which piece of content receives more likes. This can tell you the type of content and even products your customers are looking for. Do you have fans that always like your content? Reach out to them with a special offers for being such a good fan. Remember, Facebook friends can now easily see when someone likes a post, so its also a great promotion.

Twitter Retweets

Twitter retweets are a step above an action like a favorite or alike. A retweet shows that your fan supports your content so much that they are happy to be associated with it. This also means that your customers want to share your content with their friends. Every time someone retweets your content, note what type of post it was. This will tell you what kind of posts are likely to spread the word about your business in the form of retweets.

Facebook Insights

You can dig deeper into your social media activity in Facebook Insights. These are offered to anyone who manages a Facebook page. Dig into all the categories of your insights to learn the demographics of your fans, what time they’re online and who they are. You can even go so far as to target your posts based on demographics, allowing you to test what you learned from your likes and insights.

Social media isn’t a one way conversation or just a way of sharing information. Use social media to learn more about your customers and potential customers and offer them more of what they like!

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